Plot

Blues Brothers 2000 picks up 18 years after The
Blues Brothers, with Elwood (Dan Aykroyd) being
released from prison, this time a rather high-tech private prison
rather than the old Illinois state prison depicted in the first
film. He learns that his brother, Jake (John Belushi) has
died, along with their surrogate father figure Curtis (Cab Calloway), and
that the orphanage the two had saved in the first film is no more;
however he is told of his second brother (of sorts). The "brother"
is the illegitimate son of Curtis, named Cabel "Cab" Chamberlain
(Joe Morton), whom
until Elwood entered his life had no knowledge of Curtis being his
father. Cab is a Commander in the Illinois State Police and angrily
refuses to support Elwood, a habitual criminal. Elwood takes a job
as an announcer in a nightclub (a strip club owned by the drummer
of the Blues Brothers band, Willie Hall), where he discovers
that the bartender,
Mighty Mac (played by John Goodman) has singing talent, while
getting on the bad side of the Russian mafia who
have been demanding payoffs from the nightclub.

After the Russian mafia burns down the club, Elwood resolves to
put the band back together once again with Mighty Mac as his new
partner and a 10-year old orphan named Buster (J. Evan Bonifant) also tagging along.
The band travels to several locations shown in the first film with
a depiction of how they have changed in the intervening years
(Bob's Country Bunker for example is now Bob's Country
Kitchen, a family restaurant). As well as upsetting the mafia,
Elwood also falls foul of a "white power group" and the police
force, headed by a zealous and ruthless Cab.

Finally, the band heads south to Louisiana with the intention of entering a battle of the bands held at the home of a
voodoo
practitioner named Queen Moussette, played by Erykah Badu. At the
battle of the bands they compete against B. B. King's band.
Ironically, B. B. King's character started the band only after
Elwood bought a police car from him in the beginning of the
film.

Production

Following its predecessor, The Blues Brothers 2000 made
a record in the Guinness Book of Records, for
the biggest car pile up, a record previously held by the original
film. Approximately 60 cars were used in the scene after Elwood
says to the band "Don't look back." Inevitably, they look back and
see the massive pile-up.

Casting

The film was originally intended to include Brother Zee Blues
(James Belushi).
But due to an already existing television deal, Belushi was unable
to appear in the film and the script was altered to include Cab
Blues (Joe Morton).
This character was named Cabel such as homage to Cab Calloway, who
died four years prior to the film's release (his character Curtis
was revealed to have died in the film along with Jake.)

The band's original keyboardist, Paul Shaffer, was committed to Gilda Radner's
one-woman show on Broadway and was unable to appear in the first
film. He was replaced by actor-musician Murphy Dunne. However, Shaffer appears in
Blues Brothers 2000. He took a week off from Late Show with David
Letterman in order to film his role as Marco, Queen
Moussette's aide (Warren Zevon took his place that week on
the show). During the Funky Nassau number, Marco asks to
cut in on keyboards, which Murph allows. This marks the first
on-screen time that the Blues Brothers Band plays with their
original keyboardist.

Video
game

A Blues Brothers 2000 video game was released for the
Nintendo 64 on
November 17, 2000, almost two years after the film's release. The
plot of the game involves Elwood as the main character going
through different chapters and levels, while trying to save the
kidnapped members of the band one by one.